Just another crack in the wall? The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe in medieval French literature

The story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which first appears in Ovid's Metamorphoses, is one of the most popular stories during the French Middle Ages. While this tale might appear to be entirely tragic, it also has a very comedic aspect to it. This latent humor has its roots in the Ovidian myth and is further exploited in the medieval French Piramus et Tisbé . Because there has been no study of the erotic vocabulary of this romance, that will be one of the principal concerns of this dissertation. In addition, the Piramus itself is available only in Old French or in English, so this present study will also include a translation of the romance into modern French. The popularity of this story is seen throughout the Middle Ages in France, although there are decided differences in early and later medieval adaptations. In the period preceeding the Roman de la Rose, motif transfer is the primary means by which elements of the tale are reused by subsequent authors, such as Chrétien de Troyes. After the Roman de la Rose, however, the myth is frequently retold in its entirety and has a moral lesson appended to it. This is seen most clearly in the works of Christine de Pizan and in the Ovide moralisé , but there are other works, such as Jehan Malkaraume's Bible and Jean Froissart's Prison amoureuse, where the story is integrated into a larger text. These different uses of the same story demonstrate the adaptability and the flexibility of Ovid's story, and they also encompass the changes that took place in medieval French literature as a whole from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries.